Bobcat 864 Skidsteer (deutz 73 HP turbo diesel)

[Kitt]

Hey guys, I've been maintaining my machine and having normal wear and tear items (including rebuilding the HCU myself, and pulling a drive unit out of the tracked machine for a swap). I am having an issue where the machine behaves like it's starving for fuel and bogs/labors. It seems to surface when the (1) machine/ambient is hot or (2) randomly on weird angles/slopes, which could just be the machine working harder/hotter. I'm at the start of a busy season at my house and would really like some help getting back up to power! 300 hours ago: I have replaced the short 2" fuel hoses from the rail to the cylinders with non-braided standard diesel fuel line at some point. 100 hours ago: I replaced the in tank fuel pick-up screen/filter and used standard clear fuel line about 2 seasons ago, checked & screen is clean. When I fished the original out, I also grabbed a piece of straight black hose (assumed it was on the fuel return elbow, and wasn't necessary to replace). 50 hours ago: Removed the fuel bulb at some point too because that was sucking in when it got hot (and pinching off fuel) last season. I replaced the inline filter last year. 1 hour ago: fresh fuel filter on the machine & check pick-up line screen. Any suggestions!?!? Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[lesgawlik]

Is the fuel bulb hard when it starts running bad? What happens when you pump it? Did you clean out the fuel tank when you replaced the pickup? What happens if you put a jug of diesel above the engine and let it gravity feed into the engine? I had similar problems on a T200, and it turned out to be a bad pickup ( I know you replaced yours ) and sludge in the tank.

 

[Siteworx]

Is the fuel bulb hard when it starts running bad? What happens when you pump it? Did you clean out the fuel tank when you replaced the pickup? What happens if you put a jug of diesel above the engine and let it gravity feed into the engine? I had similar problems on a T200, and it turned out to be a bad pickup ( I know you replaced yours ) and sludge in the tank.

I am having a similar problem with my 873G. What happens to mine is under load it starts puffing black smoke and sounds like it is missing. The first time this happened I changed the fuel pump with no fix. Next I started checking injectors. I replaced one that was suspect with no fix. Than I pulled the pick up line out of the tank and the filter was missing so I fixed that and it fixed my problem. So after that I replaced all the small fuel lines and primer bulb. So all of that has been replaced last summer. This past winter I had the same issue and replaced the pick up line and the problem was resolved again. So this week it started doing it again. When this happens I loose power and it will kill the engine unless I idle the engine down and stop all movement. You can actually hear the rough idle clear up and you can move again for a minute or two. It is worse the higher the rpms you are running. I pulled the pick up line and filter today and cleaned it and put it back in. It wasn't really dirty either. Once I got it all back together it runs fine. What is the deal with this. Is there a in-line filter I could install and get rid of the one on the pick up line? How would you guys handle this??? Thanks Mike

 

[Tazza]

I am having a similar problem with my 873G. What happens to mine is under load it starts puffing black smoke and sounds like it is missing. The first time this happened I changed the fuel pump with no fix. Next I started checking injectors. I replaced one that was suspect with no fix. Than I pulled the pick up line out of the tank and the filter was missing so I fixed that and it fixed my problem. So after that I replaced all the small fuel lines and primer bulb. So all of that has been replaced last summer. This past winter I had the same issue and replaced the pick up line and the problem was resolved again. So this week it started doing it again. When this happens I loose power and it will kill the engine unless I idle the engine down and stop all movement. You can actually hear the rough idle clear up and you can move again for a minute or two. It is worse the higher the rpms you are running. I pulled the pick up line and filter today and cleaned it and put it back in. It wasn't really dirty either. Once I got it all back together it runs fine. What is the deal with this. Is there a in-line filter I could install and get rid of the one on the pick up line? How would you guys handle this??? Thanks Mike

It's not uncommon to have a tank full of crud, if it's like slime, there could be algae in the fuel, you can fuel treatment to kill it.
There is no problem installing an inline filter for easy replacement. The only issue that i have had with removing the pickup screen is, there is a one way valve in it that helps with priming the system.

 

[Siteworx]

It's not uncommon to have a tank full of crud, if it's like slime, there could be algae in the fuel, you can fuel treatment to kill it.
There is no problem installing an inline filter for easy replacement. The only issue that i have had with removing the pickup screen is, there is a one way valve in it that helps with priming the system.

How hard is it to pull the fuel tank and drain it? I wish I knew how to post a video so you could see exactly what it is doing. I really think it is a fuel problem. When you run the machine at half throttle it does good. I just don't know what to try next